Few know that the first vaccine linked to “autism” was the smallpox vaccine in a 1976 paper:

Abstract:

3-4 weeks following an otherwise uncomplicated first vaccination against smallpox a boy, then aged 15 months and last seen at the age of 5 1/2 years, gradually developed a complete Kanner syndrome. The question whether vaccination and early infantile autism might be connected is being discussed. A causal relationship is considered extremely unlikely. But vaccination is recognized as having a starter function for the onset of autism”.

So anyone who claims in one of the many ridiculous “skeptic” and other blog posts that this there is no evidence of any link and it is all attributable to Dr Andrew Wakefield and the MMR vaccine is at best wrong [and at worst something else quite different].

The prevalence of parent-reported ASD among children aged 6-17 years was 2 percent [1 in 50] in 2011-2012 compared to 1.2 percent [1 in 83] in 2007

The change in prevalence estimates was greatest for boys and for adolescents aged 14 to 17 years.

Children who were first diagnosed in or after 2008 were more likely to have milder ASD than those diagnosed in or before 2007.

Much of the increase in the prevalence estimates from 2007 to 2011-2012 for school-aged children was the result of diagnoses of children with previously unrecognized ASD.

The report was co-authored by HRSA and data collection was conducted by the CDC. The data come from the National Survey of Children’s Health, a nationally representative phone survey of households with children. This survey is conducted every four years.

For all the epidemics of chronic childhood medical conditions in the 2006 NHANES report reported that 50% of all children had at least one chronic medical condition and predicted that more than 25% of the USA’s children would have at least one lifetime chronic medical condition, which include, but are not limited to, “autism”, ADHD, asthma/COPD, diabetes, dilated idiopathic cardiomyopathy, encephalitis and encephalopathy, epilepsy, gastrointestinal diseases and disorders, Guillian Barré syndrome, multiple sclerosis, chronic skin conditions, obesity, and vasculitis.

The “symptoms of autism” are the “same” as the symptoms of low-dose organic-mercury poisoning by Thimerosal-preserved vaccines that are still in use in the USA (mainly in the influenza vaccines given to pregnant and lactating women and developing children after 2002 as well as today to all adults annually) and other countries that still use Thimerosal-containing vaccines in their routine early childhood vaccination programs.

When health officials in the press criticise parents who do not vaccinate, and some on blogs attack you personally for raising justified concerns about vaccines, you can tell them the evidence is clear, and you can read it here, the vaccinated are more likely to kill a child because they are vaccinated.

So when someone makes the accusation, send them the link to this CHS post:

And you can tell them, it is parents of vaccinated children who are most likely to be responsible for those deaths. It is also health officials who fail to warn parents or do anything to ensure effective treatments are developed which might have saved the lives of those who have died or would save those who will die because of the parents who had their children vaccinated.

Read on and you will see current evidence shows it is not just measles but whooping cough and polio vaccines as well.

Regular CHS readers will know to expect health officials will deny vehemently the live measles virus in the MMR and measles vaccines can be passed from a vaccinated individual to infect others with measles [horizontal transmission]. Regular CHS readers will also know to expect that one too many health officials are simply untruthful about vaccine safety and efficacy issues. They routinely grossly exaggerate disease risks, including from real examples shown here on CHS where some have been caught being untruthful about these matters.

What most people also do not know is that the live measles vaccine virus is shed by those infected with vaccine measles. We give an example here from a medical journal. So this shows that the vaccinated can kill. As there are more of them, the chances are higher they will. But you are told to vaccinate your child to protect those who cannot be vaccinated. And many people know the old adage “coughs and sneezes spread diseases“.

Here is an example of a vaccine infected child with symptoms of measles shedding the virus in the throat and urine:

We describe excretion of measles vaccine strain Schwarz in a child who developed a febrile rash illness eight days after primary immunisation against measles, mumps and rubella. Throat swabs and urine specimens were collected on the fifth and sixth day of illness, respectively. Genotyping demonstrated measles vaccine strain Schwarz (genotype A). If measles and rubella were not under enhanced surveillance in Croatia, the case would have been either misreported as rubella or not recognised at all.

Now, do you think that if someone dies from vaccine caused measles, anyone would hear about it, or that if it was publicised, no one would lie about the cause not being vaccine measles?

One of the big lies last year in the UK (and there is unfortunately no other word for it but “lie” as it was deliberate) was parents were told that their healthy child could die if not vaccinated with MMR and that 1 in 1000 who catch measles will die. Data from the UK Health Protection Agency shows there have been nearly 107,000 reported cases of measles in the UK since 1992 but not a single healthy child or adult has died from a case of acute measles since 1992. That is in 22 years. The only deaths since the last death in 1992 from acute measles have been in 3 already sick immunocompromised individuals and not healthy children vaccinated or not. So there have been no deaths in all that time in the 5-10% of children not vaccinated but officials falsely claim 1 in 1000 who get measles will die.

And this is with “herd immunity” too, although as the vaccines have been failing so too have the claims about the vaccine coverage to achieve “herd immunity” been rising, starting with 55% in 1967 in the USA to what was 90% and the 95% being claimed now. It will soon be 100%.

So what and who are you supposed to believe? Not public health officials. They have regrettably proven themselves repeatedly over decades to be unreliable sources of information.

See the figures and especially the quote at bottom of HPA web page:

Prior to 2006, the last death from acute measles was in 1992. In 2006, there was one measles death in a 13 years old male who had an underlying lung condition and was taking immunosuppressive drugs. Another death in 2008 was also due to acute measles in unvaccinated child with congenital immunodeficiency whose condition did not require treatment with immunoglobulin. In 2013, one death was reported in a 25 year old man following acute pneumonia as a complication of measles. “

What the UK HPA omit regarding the death of the 25 year old in Wales was that he was not like your child is likely to be. He was unwell and immunocompromised. He was on medication, was severely underweight, was being treated for an alcohol addiction, and he then died two days after being sent home by his own doctor with no medical attention when he then had been seen with a measles rash and in the middle of outbreaks of measles in South Wales UK. And mention is barely made of the fact that pneumonia after measles was “one of the ‘most likely’” causes of death so it is not even certain it was the pneumonia after measles that was the certain cause:

Giant Cell Pneumonia was one of the “most likely” causes of death associated with measles. ….. The inquest heard blood and urine tests showed Mr Colfer-Williams, who was very underweight at only seven stones seven pounds despite being five foot nine inches tall, had taken a variety of anti-depressant and other drugs.

People who get natural measles have always enjoyed lifelong immunity. Now it is clear that because of vaccination adults may have to have routine boosters of measles vaccine. So vaccination seems to have destroyed natural disease immunity in the population. That is a remarkable achievement for a measure introduced to supposedly eradicate measles in the USA in just one year, 1967: “Measles To Be Eradicated in 1967 With 55% Vaccine Coverage”

It failed then, kept failing during the 1970s, failed again in 1984 in the USA and 1988 in the UK and other countries with the introduction of the MMR [with the also unnecessary mumps component]. Failed again when MMR two doses were introduced because one was not enough. Failed again and again as health officials kept raising the level of vaccination coverage to achieve supposed “herd immunity” [they started with 55% coverage in 1967]. And now even with 95% coverage levels it is failing. After that it will be 100% coverage enforced with compulsory vaccination and it will be failing again, with boosters already being suggested for adults. Now that is an under-impressive record for medical “science” [or should we say pseudoscience? Because that is more accurate.]

The destruction of natural disease immunity is yet another step along the route of making citizens believe and feel they are dependent upon the state and those who control it for their health and security and that of their families and children, just like false flag attacks in the USA do. The cause of adults in highly vaccinated populations contracting measles and perhaps even dying when with natural immunity they would not, is the vaccines and the vaccine programmes. So the ways in which the safety from disease conferred by natural immunity is undermined by vaccines are manifold.

And it is not just those vaccinated against measles who are more likely to kill a baby. Those vaccinated against whooping cough are far far more likely to kill a baby than an unvaccinated child. You can see that from the following CHS article which we publish again here.

Just a “quickie”. Whooping cough [pertussis]vaccine is not working in Australia according to this report published in The Sidney Morning Herald: Whooping cough vaccine loses its effectiveness April 14, 2014 Lucy Carroll Health Reporter.

And read on if you want examples to show incompetent journalists they are just plain dumb to fall for the false explanation that the parents of unvaccinated children are to blame for the circulation of childhood diseases. Here you can find links to mainstream sources revealing how the vaccinated are catching and passing on these ages old basic childhood diseases.

And if you want someone to blame, that is the easy bit. The reason we do not have effective treatments for these diseases are firstly those incompetent health and science journalists or editors who have not made sure they embarrassed the hell out of government health officials [but suck up to them instead]. Then we have the medical professions. The egos of some of them are huge [but not big enough to see through the haze of pseudo-scientific junk science they have surrounded themselves with about vaccines]. They shelved development of effective treatments in favour of vaccines, swallowing all the mumbo-jumbo pseudo-science. And next to them we have government health officials to blame.

That is the “who is to blame”. And what is the “what” that is to blame? Easy. It is vaccines, but more and over all that it is the classic example of the wonders of “science” being screwed up by the wonders of scientists, as seen so many times with things like nuclear power, pesticides and all manner of harmful applications of “science” by “scientists”.

So to Australia’s ineffective whooping cough vaccine we can add:

1) the UK. And the USA [where in California over 80% of cases were in the fully vaccinated]:

3) the US FDA’s own research findings that the whooping cough vaccine does not stop the disease spreading, with no effective herd immunity. [Although that does not stop the vaccine lobby and incompetent journalists blaming the transmission of naturally occurring diseases on the parents of unvaccinated children – when that is clearly wrong]:

4) we might as well throw in measles with the failing MMR vaccine in the USA which is also the same one used for years in the UK since 1994: Merck’s MMR II. And again this shows that measles can be caught and transmitted by fully vaccinated individuals to other fully vaccinated individuals – these are not the unvaccinated but the fully vaccinated, showing it is clearly wrong to blame naturally occurring diseases on the parents of unvaccinated children – when that is clearly wrong:

5) and we also add the failing mumps vaccine in Holland [Netherland], where of course as vaccinated individuals catch mumps and pass it on to other vaccinated individuals, you should now be realising that it is fairly dumb to blame naturally occurring diseases on the parents of unvaccinated children – when that is clearly wrong:

8) and then there is the polio eradication which cost India US$8 billion and in just one year 47,500 cases of what was probably called polio back in the 1940s and 1950s, namely what is now called non polio acute flaccid paralysis [NPAFP]. NPAFP is twice as deadly as polio and bizarrely clinically indistinguishable from polio and occurred in India in proportion to the number of polio vaccines given. Again, deadly NPAFP disease cannot be blamed on the parents of unvaccinated children – this shows that is clearly wrong – the polio vaccine clearly seems to be the culprit:

For those CHS readers who may not know of the suspension of the Japanese Health Ministry’s recommendation for these vaccines last year, it was reported June 18, 2013 in Japan’s leading daily newspaper, in an in-depth article which was republished in the English-language digital version The Asahi Shimbun AJW: ANALYSIS: Experts at loss over pain from cervical cancer vaccination.

What this tells us is that throughout the western world health officials and others have managed to cow and manipulate the media to such a degree that serious health risks of drug products go unreported. In the UK, health officials have presented formal reports containing manipulated data about such reactions including classifying some as “psychogenic” – even serious ones, which it is difficult to imagine could be: UK Drug Safety Agency Falsified Vaccine Safety Data For 6 Million.

In other words in health females have no equality. Health officials continue to present women and girls as silly bubble-headed females who are so flighty and feckless that they make something out of nothing and do not know what is real and what is not.

There have been cases of complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS), in which severe pain often spreads from a limb to other body parts. In serious cases, it becomes difficult to walk or move the arms.

More than half the estimated 3.28 million vaccinated Japanese women reported symptoms ranging from a swollen or reddened inoculation site to pain and fatigue with 2,000 complaints of side effects, such as prolonged pain and numbness which includes 357 serious cases, such as difficulties in breathing or walking and convulsions.

The Health Ministry is allowing Japanese women and girls to be vaccinated at their and their families own risk. A decision regarding reinstatement of the recommendation was anticipated within 6 months of the suspension although Ministry officials were quoted at the time as saying there was then no means to fully examine or explain the causes of the side effects.

This is also what NBC, ABC, CNN, The Washington Post, The New York Times and mainstream journalism across the USA are costing Americans by failing to report the biggest health disaster in history and suppressing the news and evidence about the main known cause: vaccines. This is what US Health Secretaries like the outgoing Kathleen Sebelius and the former Centers for Disease Control Director Julie Gerberding, [now Merck Vaccines Division President] and many more are costing Americans. This is what Thomas R. Insel, M.D. Director, National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and Chair of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC), The American Academy of Pediatrics and many more are costing Americans.

But worse, these people and people like them are costing 1 in 68 American children and children worldwide their health and stealing their future of normal healthy lives and blighting around 1 in 25 families in the USA and doing the same to many families around the world.

A Safeminds report CHS republishes below sets out the costs to Americans of US$3.84 trillion.

And US government health officials and agencies are using your tax dollars to achieve this epic fail.

Vote to fire them. All of them.

If the parents of 1 in 25 families were not misled by a US media which is controlled by just 6 corporations and then used their votes come election time, they could determine the political future of the United States of America in every “swing state” in the USA and who the President of the USA is to be for maybe the next 60 years and at least for as long as the autism disaster continues. When Obama was up for election the first time he, McCain and both Clintons were banging on the autism drum but once elected did worse than nothing, so they have got to learn that autism is not about one election. Autism is about every election for the foreseeable future and they all need to know that election success is to depend not on future promises but past performance.

US Autism prevalence was put on the US presidential political agenda by all US presidential candidates in 2008:-

“You do not want to bring your children into the world where we go on with the number of children who are born with autism tripling every 20 years, and nobody knows why,” Bill Clinton said.“Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama returning to Oregon“ – Amy Easley and Tony Fuller, KTVZ.COM,

The American President as Commander-In-Chief is failing to protect American children from the enemy within the USA. And it is not Al Qaeda or any extremist group. The creation of an image of muslims as a terror threat is distracting Americans from the true problems facing US internal security today. Democracy in the USA is fading and will fade away if Americans continue to do nothing about problems like the international autism pandemic.

Remarkable warnings were given to the American people by a President of the United States about a few corporations gaining disproportionate influence over the US Government and its agencies. Back in 1961 from his televised valedictory address to the nation Dwight D Eisenhower warned of the rise of the military-industrial complex and the dangers it spelt for the USA and for every American. Since that time Americans and the world have seen a parallel rise of the medical-industrial complex. The same game – just a small number of different players, playing you, The US Congress, The US Senate and The President of The United States, all at the same time, whilst in one way or another owning or controlling the US media. President Eisenhower in a speech he had wanted to give for two years and had to wait until the expiration of his presidential term in the middle of the 1956-1975 Vietnam War said:

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

The following is a Safeminds Report From 13 Apr 2014 Republished by CHS.

And remember, when you want the real news, you can only get it on the web and not from the likes of CNN, ABC, NBC, The Washington Post, The New York Times and mainstream journalism.

Ten Times the Prevalence of Severe Autism over Time, But No Increase vs. 2008

By Katie Weisman, for the SafeMinds’ Research Committee
Thanks to Mark Blaxill and Cynthia Nevison, PhD for the graphs.

Introduction

On March 28th, thousands of media outlets released the new US autism prevalence numbers of 1 in 68 in 8-year-olds born in 2002 and counted in 2010. These children are 12 years old now. What was glaringly lacking in the media coverage was any critical thought about that actual data, any sign that reporters had actually read the new report or any sign of urgency on behalf of our children.

The CDC’s take away messages were as follows:

We’re reporting a 30% increase in autism in 2 years, but you don’t need to worry because these kids have always been here. We are just better at counting than we were before.Comment: There has been a 37-fold increase in reported autism spectrum disorders in the past 30 years – which would be about 1984, hardly the dark ages. Do you really believe that there were this many kids with autism around when you were young? The prevalence was 1 in 2500 in the early 80s or .4/1000; as of this month, it is 14.7/1000. The CDC has yet to conduct a population-based count of people with autism of all ages and severities which would lay this issue to rest. We should all be asking why they haven’t. They continue to say that they still can’t be sure if the increase is real – over and over again – for the past decade.

It looks like the kids are getting milder – they have less intellectual disability (ID) – and it’s due to broader diagnosis.Comment: Up until the 2006 data, the ADDM reports only stated the percentage with IQ’s below 70, which were stable (on average) in the early reports (see chart 1) but the averages masked a wide spread in the actual percentages by state. Breakdowns into three categories of ID started in the 2008 data. The percentage of children diagnosed with autism in the newer reports (see chart 1) is consistent with the percentage with ID in the older reports, but the CDC did not supply data on diagnostic categories in the past. What is unclear is what is driving the change in the ID of the children. Are we seeing children who still have autism but are less language impaired?

There is no possibility that autism and vaccines are connected because the numbers are still going up.Comment: Assuming that there is, in fact, a smaller percentage of ASD children with Intellectual Disability, those shifts do correspond to the beginning of the phase out of thimerosal in vaccines, which is a plausible explanation as well – but one CDC doesn’t mention. Thimerosal reduction in the recommended childhood vaccine schedule (HepB, Hib and DTaP) started in 1999 and it was phased out over several years. However, shortly thereafter, in the 2002-2003 season, the CDC started encouraging flu shots (most of which contained thimerosal) for infants 6-23 months and in the 2004-2005 flu season flu shots were formally recommended for all infants starting at 6 months of age. Meanwhile, the CDC and ACOG also added influenza vaccines (most of which still contained thimerosal) to the recommendations for pregnant women in all trimesters in 2004. This FDA letter makes clear that thimerosal-containing infant vaccines would still have been administered throughout 2002 – the birth year of the current ADDM report but at amounts, on average, probably less than in the 2000 birth cohort. The exposure to any particular child is an unknown without checking their history.

If you are a young parent, check out our website to learn the signs of autism and talk to your pediatrician if you have concerns. Early intervention is the answer.Comment: Where is the interest in prevention? This approach is letting a child fall off a cliff and then trying to catch him. Despite the CDC’s “Learn the Signs” program, the average age of diagnosis in this report is the same as it was a decade ago in the 2000 data – about 53 months or age 4.5. There has been no measurable progress in this area.

Preface – Limitations of the ADDM numbers:

As outlined in the SafeMinds commentary on March, 28th, there are significant limitations to the quality of the data in the ADDM network overall, which I will not repeat here. My purpose here is to point out important data that was missed, further weaknesses in the reports and to show that there are broad questions regarding what is included and excluded that should arise from looking at the ADDM reports. The “spin”, deletion and addition of sections and overall characterization of the reports should be questioned by all those who care about someone with autism.

The chart below is a summary of some key information from the ADDM network over the years. It includes the number of sites included in the ADDM, the average age of first diagnosis with an autism spectrum disorder, the percentages of IQ levels as reported in ASD cases in select states (typically the states in which they have IQ data for more than 70% of the cases), the percentage breakdown of the three primary ASD diagnoses and documentation of regression data.

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Discussion of Intellectual Disability Reporting:

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The CDC made a big point of promoting the idea that autism prevalence is still going up while the percentage of kids without intellectual disability is rising and the raw numbers on the chart support that trend. However, here is a quote from the 2008 report that provides a different perspective:

In the four sites with IQ test data available on at least 70% of children with ASDs in both the 2006 and 2008 surveillance years, the estimated prevalence of ASD with intellectual disability increased 12% on average (4.2–4.7 per 1,000), while the prevalence of ASD with borderline intellectual ability increased 22% (2.3–2.8 per 1,000), and the prevalence of ASD with average or above-average intellectual ability increased 13% (3.9–4.4 per 1,000).

In other words, if you actually compare apples to apples in the same 4 states, ASD with and without ID increased about the same percentage – certainly not a compelling shift between the two ends of the range and showing the importance of comparing the same states.

No Prevalence Increase in the With Intellectual Disability Subgroup

Also, notice that the “with intellectual disability” prevalence number just reported for the 2002 birth cohort is 4.7 per 1000 children, which is exactly the same as the prevalence reported for the 2000 birth cohort in the quote above, 4.7 per 1000. It is only 12% (5.8% annualized) more than the 1998 birth cohort prevalence of 4.2 per 1000. Unfortunately, the 1992 and 1994 birth cohort reports do not give prevalence statistic for just those with ID so we cannot compare farther back. However, the data that we do have suggests that, after a long period of annualized 8.5% increases, to get from .4/1000 to 4.7/1000, the prevalence of the most severe autism may be flattening – though at a level too high for anyone’s comfort. It is critically important that we look at actual prevalence comparisons in subpopulations and not just at the percentages of the whole population with ASD.

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Removal of South Carolina and Alabama

This year, after being included in all previous ADDM reports, South Carolina data was not reported due to “not providing suitable data in a timely manner”. No further explanation is given. It seems a little unusual that an experienced team would suddenly be unable to produce the work that they had been doing for a decade. Given that SC had the highest percentage of ID in 2008 at 54% that would have decreased the percentage disparity in the ID categories. Also, Alabama, which despite only 10% access to education records had recorded a high percentage of ASD children with ID in the past, is not part of the current reporting. See Chart 1B below.

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Change in States Reported Over Time for Intellectual Disability Analysis

To further complicate comparisons of intellectual disability over time, consider the above chart of which states were reported in each birth cohort. The percentages are for those with ID. For each birth cohort, I have indicated the percentage of intellectual disability (IQ<70) in bold if it is mentioned in the report specifically. For some reports, the only source of a percentage is a bar graph so I have put those percentages in regular font as they are taken from the graphs with an approximate adjustment for the ratio of boys to girls in the typical cohort. N/A in the chart means that the state was included but due to the limited nature of the 2004 report (actually an addendum to the 2006 report and issued at the same time), there was no bar graphs to pull approximate percentages from.

Note the following:

The percentage of states included in the ID analysis has varied from 50-64% of the states included for that year.

There has never been a year when the same states were included so one needs to look at “apples to apples” comparisons.

There is huge variation state to state (13-63%) in the percentage of children with ID, which has yet to be explained or investigated. Since we are looking only at cases with ID, there should be less effect of “broader diagnosis” and these variations may reflect actual differences in severe autism due to environmental exposures. This area is ripe for more research.

Here is the direct quote from the 2010 report:

Over the last decade, the most notable change in characteristics of children identified with ASD through the ADDM Network is the growing number who have average or above average intellectual ability. This proportion has increased consistently over time from 32% in 2002, to 38% in 2006, to 46% in 2010, or almost half of children identified with ASD. Concurrently, the proportion of children with ASD and co-occurring intellectual disability has steadily decreased from 47% in 2002, to 41% in 2006, to 31% in 2010. This shift in distribution of intellectual ability among children identified with ASD during 2002–2010 indicates that a large proportion of the observed ASD prevalence increase can be attributed to children with average or above average intellectual ability (IQ >85).

Given the above, do you feel that the CDC has accurately reported the situation? Or is this “spin” to say the numbers are still going up, but you don’t need to worry?

Elimination of Regression Reporting

In the early years of the ADDM network, regression was reported consistently in about 13-30% of the children counted. They also reported a plateau in development in an additional 3-10% of the cases. The relative consistency is noteworthy (compared with much of the data reported) in the 2000, 2002 and 2006 collection years (see Chart 1). Then in the past two reports for the 2008 and 2010 data, the entire section of the study reporting regression breakdown was eliminated. These numbers were based on actual documentation in the case files and a quote in the 2002 report states, “Therefore, these results should be considered a minimal estimate of plateau and regression among ASD cases”. In 2009, the ADDM team did a separate study looking at regression in the network and reported the following:

This study evaluated the phenomenon of autistic regression using population-based data. The sample comprised 285 children who met the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) case definition within an ongoing surveillance program. Results indicated that children with a previously documented ASD diagnosis had higher rates of autistic regression than children who met the ASD surveillance definition but did not have a clearly documented ASD diagnosis in their records (17-26 percent of surveillance cases). Most children regressed around 24 months of age and boys were more likely to have documented regression than girls. Half of the children with regression had developmental concerns noted prior to the loss of skills. Moreover, children with autistic regression were more likely to show certain associated features, including cognitive impairment. These data indicate that some children with ASD experience a loss of skills in the first few years of life and may have a unique symptom profile.

Timeliness of Reporting the Surveillance

In a 2007 study (Braun et al.) of the 2002 data collection, CDC made the following statement:

Although the ADDM sites participating in the 2002 surveillance year represent multiple grant cycles, the estimated time required for this surveillance year, from start of funding to reporting of results, was approximately 3–4 years. Once the surveillance system has been instituted at a site, these limitations to timeliness are greatly reduced for future surveillance years. As ADDM Network surveillance methods have evolved, the time required to make data available has decreased. Multiple surveillance years can now be conducted concurrently, and clinician review has been restructured to increase efficiency.

So, if the time to actually make the data available has decreased, why are the 2010 data only being reported in the spring of 2014? There has been no improvement in a decade of the timeliness of the reporting of the autism surveillance. Our children deserve better.

Where is the Study of the 4 Year-Olds? The 2010 surveillance funding included collection of cases in 4 year olds with ASD in 6 states. The states included are Arizona, Missouri, New Jersey, Missouri, Utah and Wisconsin. Missouri and Wisconsin are states that don’t access education records, but this should be less of an issue in a 4 year old population since they are not school age yet. It will be interesting to see if the South Caroline data for the 4 year-olds is included or not. The primary question is when that data will be published. With fewer records to collect, shouldn’t it have been published ahead of the 8 year-old numbers?

Complete Elimination of the Within State Comparisons of Prevalence

In the 2008 ADDM report, there are 3 pages looking at within state comparisons of prevalence of ASDs by sex, race and IQ. The comparisons are done for various combinations of the 2002, 2006 and 2008 reporting years. This entire analysis is missing from the 2010 report with no explanation given.

I have created the chart below to try to get a bird’s eye view of the ADDM prevalences over time. At first glance, the following thoughts come to mind:

Arizona’s growth curve spiked between 2004 and 2006 and has been slowing ever since.

Arkansas’s growth curve spiked between the 2000 and 2002 birth cohorts. What happened?

Florida’s growth curve spiked between the 1998 and 2000 birth cohorts. More below.

Georgia’s growth curve doubled between the 2000 and 2002 birth cohorts. This is the longest running surveillance site and has had very steady growth over time. What changed?

Missouri’s growth curve spiked between the 1996 and 1998 birth cohorts and has come down to almost flat since then.

New Jersey’s growth curve may be flattening. However, the fact sheet on New Jersey reports a staggering 1 in 45 children with ASD; 1 in 28 boys and 1 in 133 girls who are now 12 years old. This was lost in the news reports.

South Carolina’s growth curve had a huge spike between the 1996 and 1998 birth cohorts.

Utah reported a decrease in autism of almost 13% over the 2000 to 2002 birth cohorts. This is the biggest drop reported in ADDM in a state with good access to records. Yet there was no mention of it in the CDC’s press coverage. Interestingly, all the press out of Utah reported rates as “holding steady”; none mentioned the actual drop in prevalence.

West Virginia’s growth curve was dramatic from the 1992-1994 birth cohorts but there has been no follow up for 10 years.

All of these changes suggest the possibility of environmental factors, particularly the large spikes in certain 2 year periods. Again, more research is needed.

In the chart below, the shaded states do not have access to most educational records and have consistently been shown to underreport autism prevalence compared to states with access to education records.

Bolded percentages are annual percentage changes in prevalence rates. CDC typically reports two year changes at a time so these percentages are roughly half of what the media reports. It was necessary to do this to compare 2 year changes to 4 or 6 year changes, though these numbers will not reflect variations within the periods of time. We would have to have annual instead of biannual collection of data to know for sure what happened in a given state. The percentage annualized growth rates in prevalence are useful to see how the growth curves are changing in various states over time.

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What is going On in Florida?

In the 2008 report, there was a glaring signal that the CDC neither reported, nor followed up. They found 211 children with ASD of which 52.9% were Hispanic (Miami Dade County). The Hispanic prevalence rate was 8.2 per 1000 compared to a white prevalence of 4.2 per 1000. This is the only place in the 10 years of ADDM reporting that a Hispanic rate significantly (in this case almost doubled) exceeded the white rate. Typically, minorities are diagnosed at lower rates than white children in the same areas. The median earliest age of ASD diagnosis was 3 years, 6 months which suggests a more severe population and is lower than the median age of first diagnosis network-wide. The chances that this represents an autism “cluster” are strong and it should be investigated. Florida also reported an enormous prevalence change from 2006-2008 – a 71% increase in 2 years or 31% annually – the largest 2 year change ever in the ADDM reporting. Yet Florida was not funded for the 2010 cycle so we don’t know what happened next.

Press Involvement at the CDC and the Impact of PDD-NOS Non-Inclusion

Lastly, there is the question I found on the case status of children in the ADDM network. A January, 2014 study (Maenner et al.) investigating the potential impact of the DSM-5, based on ADDM data, included several interesting paragraphs:

To calculate the potential impact on prevalence, we applied DSM-5ASD criteria to 2 groups of 8-year-old children under surveillance for the years 2006 and 2008: (1) the 6577 children who met both ADDM Network ASD criteria based on the DSM-IV-TR and our operationalized DSM-5ASDcriteria and (2) the 1020 children who did not meet ADDM Network ASD criteria but could plausibly meetDSM-5 criteria. These 1020 childrenall technically met DSM-IV-TR criteria for PDD-NOS, butthe clinician reviewers did not classify them as ASD cases forsurveillance purposes; for most of these children, the clinician reviewers concluded that the behaviors were better accounted for by another disorder.

Children with a history of developmental regression were more likely to meetDSM-5ASDcriteria than those without a history (89.4% vs. 79.0%, P < .001), and children with intellectual disability were more likely to meet DSM-5ASDcriteria than children with an IQ greater than 70 (86.6%vs 82.5%, P < .001). Children with a history of regression remained more likely to meet DSM-5ASD criteria than children without a history of regression after controlling for intellectual disability.

Since excluding cases would have a significant impact on the prevalences reported in those two years, I wrote to Dr. Maenner with questions about those children. After a delay, I received an incomplete answer back from Dr. Maenner through the CDC press office. I do not normally put private e-mails online, but since this one has the press office’s blessing, that e-mail exchange is available here: http://www.safeminds.org/?p=6266

This chart shows the impact on what was reported in 2006 and 2008 of including those children who met DSM-IV-TR PDD-NOS criteria but were not included as cases.

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This graph shows the potential effect of the culling of PDD-NOS cases (in chart above) on the annualized growth percentages for autism. Whether or not that culling was present in the earlier and later cohorts is a key question. The CDC case definition has not changed over time. Per my e-mails with the CDC, this analysis has not been done for the earlier years. I have sent the question regarding the 2002 birth cohort and I am awaiting a response. If the culling was not done for the 2002 birth cohort, this suggests two things – that the prevalence growth curve is dropping in the latest cohorts and that the “without ID” percentages may have been bumped up in the 2002 cohort if the same ratio of PDD-NOS kids were not excluded.

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The Bottom Line

The CDC ADDM network reports raise far more questions than they answer and the changes over time make it difficult to answer even the most basic questions about what is going on with autism in the United States. The changes in the information reported, the states included and the way results are presented to the press should all raise red flags. If the information is accurate, then there are many opportunities for follow-up research on environmental factors that have been overlooked or ignored.

Overall, there are patterns that suggest CDC is doing its best to maintain that rates are still going up rapidly but can be explained by the inclusion of children with less intellectual disability while at the same time, arguing that vaccines (thimerosal in particular) did not play a role in this change. The real picture has a lot more shades of gray. It will be important to see what is happening with the 4 year olds when that data is published and to watch what is reported in 2016 based on the 2004 birth cohort, keeping in mind that the CDC already had that data in 2013, before releasing the current report.

For those interested: All CDC ADDM reports and community reports are available here:

A line item for autism was first created in the CDC budget in 2007. This chart shows the total autism spending to maintain the ADDM network, some additional research and the Learn the Signs program. Note that these expenditures are part of the annual appropriations provided to the CDC and are not appropriated under the CAA. Note that these numbers vary slightly from the CDC’s report to IACC which reports the following: FY 2010 – $24,710,050, FY 2011 – $23,942,225 and FY 2012 – $23,348,012. The

IACC numbers show the amount spent on autism slowly declining. The budget reports show funding basically flat for the most recent 4 years.

Considering the Costs:

The costs associated with a child with autism average $17,000 per year in excess of a typical child. That increases to $21,000 excess for a child with severe autism. Overall, the estimated societal cost of caring for children with autism was over $9 billion dollars in 2011. (Lavalle et al. Pediatrics, 2014)

The lifetime cost of care for an individual on the spectrum is 3.2 million dollars. Ganz, 2007.

In 2005, the average annual medical costs of a Medicaid -enrolled child with autism were $10,709 – about 6 times higher than a child without autism. Peacock, et al. J. of Developmental Behavioral Pediatrics, 2012.

To put this whole thing in perspective, the cost of monitoring the other 36 states that have never been monitored should be about quadruple the current CDC budget or $92 million dollars. That would cost about $76 per individual under 21. However, if you use the Ganz number multiplied by 1.2 million children (not counting adults) then the overall lifetime cost to society of those children is $3,840,000,000,000 – 3.84 trillion dollars. It seems like a small price to pay to get a handle on the problem

[News Release WATCHUNG, N.J., April 16, 2014 /PRNewswire-iReach/]

In an April 8 interview on AutismOne’s A Conversation of Hope radio show, Congressman Bill Posey’s strong resolve and demands for transparency were evident as he discussed the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC)’s handling of vaccine safety studies which affect “our most precious resource in our nation – our children.” The 30-minute interview, conducted by vaccine industry watchdog, PhD biochemist Brian Hooker, delves into what Posey called “the incestuous relationship between the public health community and the vaccine makers and public officials.“

The Florida legislator, known as “Mr. Accountabililty,” did not mince words when criticizing current and past CDC officials including indicted fraudster Dr. Poul Thorsen; CDC director turned Merck Vaccine President Dr. Julie Gerberding; and the agency’s current spokesperson regarding autism and vaccines, Dr. Coleen Boyle.

On Thorsen, Posey said

If you read through the emails and learned about the meetings and the financial arrangement this crook had with the CDC, it will make you absolutely sick to your stomach. This was no casual researcher way down the line. This is the CDC’s key man in Denmark. He was closely tied to the CDC’s top vaccine safety researchers… as long as Thorsen was cooking the books to produce the results they wanted, they didn’t care whether the studies were valid or how much money was being siphoned off the top…It’s like the Security and Exchange Commission and Bernie Madoff. But it’s worse because we’re talking about someone who basically stole money that was supposed to be used to improve the health and safety of our most vulnerable in our society – our young babies.“

Dr. Hooker remarked that Thorsen had collaborated with the CDC on 36 papers, not just one paper as claimed by Dr. Boyle, and that the agency refused to investigate studies exonerating vaccines’ role in causing autism following his indictment on wire fraud and money laundering. Posey described Boyle as “intentionally evasive,” in his questioning of her at a Congressional hearing.

I asked her a very direct question. ‘Have you done a study comparing autism rates in vaccinated vs. unvaccinated children?…’ She started telling us about everything she’s done …After she wasted three minutes, I cut her off and I demanded that she answer the question. And then, only then, did she admit that the federal government has never done that very simple, fundamental, basic study.“

About Boyle’s denial of a true increase in autism, Posey said,

I know we have an autism epidemic. You know it. She knows it. She knows we know it. But for some reason they refuse to acknowledge it publicly.”

Regarding Boyle’s assertion that the increase is due to better diagnosing, Posey said:

I don’t think anybody that’s intellectually honest with this issue can begin to fathom that lame excuse that she uses.”

He also described an orchestrated campaign on behalf of the CDC and vaccine industry:

people who do all the blogging and shredding anyone who dares question the unaccountable bureaucrats.” He spoke of “their little media network [that will] twist the truth to disparage, to malign, to vilify, to denigrate anybody who wants any kind of accountability….”

Posey then discussed his co-sponsorship with Rep. Carolyn Maloney of the Vaccine Safety Study Act. He said the proposed legislation would compel the government to conduct a retrospective vaccinated vs. unvaccinated study of health outcomes. He felt it could be done with “accountability and direct oversight of the government“.

In his closing remarks, Posey said,

The CDC can’t be trusted regarding investigating vaccine safety. Huge conflict of interest. I think the CDC should be investigated.”

Representative Bill Posey is serving his third term in Florida’s 8th Congressional District. He serves on the Committee for Science, Space and Technology. He was instrumental in the release of CDC documents regarding a link between vaccines and autism. These papers are now being analyzed by several researchers, including Dr. Brian Hooker.

Brian Hooker, PhD, PE, has 15 years experience in the field of bioengineering and is an associate professor at Simpson University where he specializes in biology and chemistry. His over 50 science and engineering papers have been published in internationally recognized, peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Hooker has a son, aged 16, who developed normally but then regressed into autism after receiving Thimerosal (mercury-containing) vaccines.

The Focus Autism Foundation is dedicated to providing information that exposes the cause or causes of the autism epidemic and the rise of chronic illnesses – focusing specifically on the role of vaccinations. A Shot of Truth is an educational website sponsored by Focus Autism. AutismOne is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that provides education and supports advocacy efforts for children and families touched by an autism diagnosis.

Note from CHS Ed: When you want the real news, you can only get it on the web and not from the likes of CNN, ABC, NBC, The Washington Post, The New York Times and mainstream journalism. If the news release reported here is covered by any of the mainstream media our Ed will need cardiothoracic resuscitation.

Just a “quickie”. Whooping cough [pertussis]vaccine is not working in Australia according to this report published in The Sidney Morning Herald: Whooping cough vaccine loses its effectiveness April 14, 2014 Lucy Carroll Health Reporter.

And read on if you want examples to show incompetent journalists they are just plain dumb to fall for the false explanation that the parents of unvaccinated children are to blame for the circulation of childhood diseases. Here you can find links to mainstream sources revealing how the vaccinated are catching and passing on these ages old basic childhood diseases.

And if you want someone to blame, that is the easy bit. The reason we do not have effective treatments for these diseases are firstly those incompetent health and science journalists or editors who have not made sure they embarrassed the hell out of government health officials [but suck up to them instead]. Then we have the medical professions. The egos of some of them are huge [but not big enough to see through the haze of pseudo-scientific junk science they have surrounded themselves with about vaccines]. They shelved development of effective treatments in favour of vaccines, swallowing all the mumbo-jumbo pseudo-science. And next to them we have government health officials to blame.

That is the “who is to blame”. And what is the “what” that is to blame? Easy. Its vaccines, but more and over all that it is the classic example of the wonders of “science” being screwed up by the wonders of scientists, as seen so many times with things like nuclear power, pesticides and all manner of harmful applications of “science” by “scientists”.

So to Australia’s ineffective whooping cough vaccine we can add:

1) the UK. And the USA [where in California over 80% of cases were in the fully vaccinated]:

3) the US FDA’s own research findings that the whooping cough vaccine does not stop the disease spreading, with no effective herd immunity. [Although that does not stop the vaccine lobby and incompetent journalists blaming the transmission of naturally occurring diseases on the parents of unvaccinated children – when that is clearly wrong]:

4) we might as well throw in measles with the failing MMR vaccine in the USA which is also the same one used for years in the UK since 1994: Merck’s MMR II. And again this shows that measles can be caught and transmitted by fully vaccinated individuals to other fully vaccinated individuals – these are not the unvaccinated but the fully vaccinated, showing it is clearly wrong to blame naturally occurring diseases on the parents of unvaccinated children – when that is clearly wrong:

5) and we also add the failing mumps vaccine in Holland [Netherland], where of course as vaccinated individuals catch mumps and pass it on to other vaccinated individuals, you should now be realising that it is fairly dumb to blame naturally occurring diseases on the parents of unvaccinated children – when that is clearly wrong:

8) and then there is the polio eradication which cost India US$8 billion and in just one year 47,500 cases of what was probably called polio back in the 1940s and 1950s, namely what is now called non polio acute flaccid paralysis [NPAFP]. NPAFP is twice as deadly as polio and bizarrely clinically indistinguishable from polio and occurred in India in proportion to the number of polio vaccines given. Again, deadly NPAFP disease cannot be blamed on the parents of unvaccinated children – this shows that is clearly wrong – the polio vaccine clearly seems to be the culprit: